Monday, April 12, 2010

Good miles

(Photos by Ken Hughes)

Recovery post-W48 has gone nicely, and I've run 60'ish miles for each of the past couple of weeks--rather on the high side for me. More importantly, each and every run was a joy, the weather has been great for it, and I got to check out some new-to-me trailrunning areas.

Chris had a short work gig in San Diego the week of the 29th, so I made my way over to Cuyamaca Rancho State Park about 45 minutes east of the city for a spectacular, runable yet challenging 12 miler. With about 100 miles of singletrack, doubletrack, and fire road, there's a lot more to explore there so I'll definitely be back. The YMCA was literally a one-minute walk from our hotel, so I got in a couple days of back-to-back yoga classes--a first for me--four different instructors/four completely different classes. Fun!

We did a nice, almost 20-mile loop on the Ojai Ridge on Easter Sunday: Cozy Dell to Gridley bottom to Gridley top and down Pratt. It was a near perfect day for running--cool but quite breezy on the ridgetop. We cracked up at the now hardened C2M runners' skid marks on lower Cozy Dell; if you were there, you know what I'm talking about!

This past Saturday the group pictured below did 40 "on-the-epic-side" miles in the Santa Barbara backcountry to celebrate Sandee's 40th birthday. The views and wildflowers were lovely, and we experienced quite a bit more "adventure" than I think any of us had anticipated, but that just means we had more fun. Sandwiched between nicely groomed, sissy trail, the middle section of "trail" existed only in the cartographer's imagination. To spice things up further, we waded through jungles of poison oak and mean spiny/prickly plants (the legs are just now starting to itch). Such is trailrunning through burnt areas, in this case the 2007 Zaca Fire. With all the route finding and slow going, it took us nearly 12 hours to go 40 miles! I told everyone it would've been good training for Barkley. :)

(Me, H'ard, Ken, Sandee, Maria, & Gretchen at the finish)

This week we are in Sin City, both working and playing... but not the kind of playing one usually associates with Vegas. There is great trail running here!, and we intend to revisit Bootleg Canyon in Boulder City, Red Rock Canyon, Blue Diamond, and possibly still snow-covered Mt. Charleston. And, okay, I'll admit it: I'm an overgrown 12 year old and do intend to ride the New York New York roller coaster this time!! :-)

4 comments:

Do Mt. Charleston for Olga and I. I made us turn around in a whiteout last year after we gained the ridge from the north since I didn't know the "line" and we had lost the trail in knee-deep snow. Olga will disagree with me on the "losing the trail" part since she was hypoxic. ;) Have FUN!

You know, you may have talked me into doing C2M 100k option, darling:) Keep me posted on when it's opens up, please.It was awesome meeting you and Chris in person, and yes, we could have had a hoot being around closer!